


Phoenix Rising

by frozennightmare



Series: Children of the Wild Ones 'Verse [3]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, angel!Rose, hunter!Martha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozennightmare/pseuds/frozennightmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha is sent to track down a phoenix in Reno, with more than a few demons hot on their trail. Rose is still struggling to figure herself out after hell. And there might be a blue box involved in this somewhere....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoenix Rising

Rose wakes to the sound of Martha arguing loudly with someone (it’s got to be Dean who bloody else) and decides she wants to go back to sleep.

Nope. Not happening.

She rolls the plaid car blanket off her- seriously, is _everything_ in this house plaid- and stumbles into the kitchen, adjusting the lapels of her jacket so it doesn’t look so slept in. Bobby grunts a _good morning_ ,  informs her the Winchesters left three hours ago on a hunt, and passes her a cup of coffee. Well, it’s not tea, but it’s something. Still, she needs to educate these pack animals on the, uh _, finer things_.  

Martha marches back into the kitchen, exasperated expression on her face. “Dean won’t let me borrow his angel. Rose, c’mon, it’s a hell of a drive to Nevada. You can sleep in the car.”

“Wait, why I am I coming?”

“Because,” she says, grabbing the keys to her Thunderbird off the cabinet knob they’re hanging on, “you wanted in. That means you’re with me.”

........

Part of Martha’s job is getting Rose to talk.

It’s over twenty-two hours to Reno, and the Thunderbird doesn’t exactly take the scenic route, so she doesn’t have to push hard. Rose spins tales wilder than anything she’s ever heard- aliens in Downing Street, a woman made of skin, bats using schoolkids as supercomputers. Either Rose is incredibly delusional or her life is a science fiction novel, and “incredibly delusional” doesn’t usually occur in Martha’s line of work.

No one else would believe Rose beside the hunter families. Martha’s spent nearly six years being told “you’ll just think i’m crazy”, only to have the thing attempt to kill her a few hours later. There’s always some new monster out there, even if it happens to come from beyond the stars.

They ditch their coats and jeans for the shortest shorts Rose can dig out of her bag as soon as they hit Texas, temperatures climbing astronomically despite the time of year, and Rose tries driving on the “wrong side” of the road for a while. Martha flicks through the variety of fake id’s Bobby churned out last night, then tosses them into the glove box and pulls out her phone.

_D: you got anything_

**\- dies and comes back, in and out of history, it fits the lore**

_-think you can kill it_

**-why do we need to**

_-?_

**-somethings not right**

_-JUST GET IT DONE._

Martha sighs and throws the phone back in her shorts pocket. He’s such a grump these days. She knew Dean pre-hell, when he didn’t feel the need to gank everything that breathed.

Ok, that wasn’t a new thing. But still. He used to be a lot cheerier.

“So what are we after?” There’s an air of nervous excitement around Rose, the thrill of her first real hunt still fresh.

“Disappearances all over Reno, possible demon activity. Sam thinks they’re after something, wants us to get to whatever it is first.”

“Is that what they called you in for?”

“Sort of.”

“They might be trying to crack a seal.”

Martha chokes. “I don’t remember that being on the debrief. How do you know about that?”

Rose suddenly becomes very focused on the dust strip called a road, watching the clouds billow past. “Trying to keep it quiet?” she guesses.

“It’s the fucking Apocalypse, what do you think?” Martha snorts.

“Sometimes.....” Rose hesitates. “Sometimes I hear things. People talking.”

“And they mention the seals?”

“Among other things.”

“What other things?”

“Angels, Lilith, the Devil himself. It’s weird.”

Martha laughs fakely. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” But Rose can’t help but notice her pull out her phone to text Dean.

**M: r on angel radio?**

_-wait_

_-wait what_

_-do you think_

**-all signs seem to point that way**

_-oh fuck yes_

_\- we need another angel around_

**-your angel not present enough?**

**-** _WHAT_

_-HES NOT_

_-MY_

_-NO_

**\- :)**

_\- i hate you sometimes_

**\- i know**

“You’re about to miss the turn.” warns Martha. Rose curses loudly and swerves the car in a cloud of dirt, Martha internally bemoaning her once-clean paint job. “I hate America.” Rose mutters. “It all looks the same, and you gotta drive a bloody day to get anywhere.”

“I know! If we were home, we’d be in the middle of the Atlantic by now!”

The sun starts to set seven hours out from Reno, temperature dropping rapidly in the desert. Rose starts to regret the shorts, and has Martha take over while she clambers into the back seat for their jackets. They pull into Reno about one, and Martha checks into the nearest trashy motel (Rose has a feeling her life is about to become a series of trashy motels) and helps Rose unpack the Thunderbird, running a hand over the now-dusty brown exterior with a sad shake of her head. She reaches in the passenger door and pops the glove box, pocketing their fake id’s and grabbing her own bag.

Honestly, Rose prefered Bobby’s couch. This motel was _disgusting_ , it’s decor fifty shades of suspicious stain.

 _You’ve stayed in worse._ she reminds herself. _Remember the dungeon on Karicine?_

She tries to pretend she’s in the TARDIS and falls asleep.

......................

“C’mon, sunshine. It’s already seven, that’s more sleep than you’re usually gonna get.”

Rose groans at the sound of Martha’s voice and wanders toward the shower, washing the seventh layer of dust of and reflecting on how mind-numbingly boring driving in the States is. Martha’s taking the wheel when they go back to Bobby’s.

She abstains from the weirdly-dirty towel and just throws her clothes from the night before back on, trying to work some sense into her wet hair before giving up and throwing it into an almost-professional bun. Martha tosses a light gray pantsuit at her when she opens the door to her steam cavern, and Rose eyes the badge at the top of the pile suspiciously.

“Rose Wolfe, FBI?”

“We’re talking to some of the disappeared’s relatives, see if we can’t get a lead. I’m Martha Barton today.”

“But seriously,” Rose had thrown caution to the wind and elaborated on the Bad Wolf story the night before, with Bobby and the Winchesters around(and a fairly decent reception). “Rose _Wolfe?”_

Martha shrugs. “You should see some of the fake ID’s the boys use. Rock legend tributes, it’s hilarious.”

“And no one calls them out on it?”

“Never.”

.........

Rose finishes straightening out her too-big suit jacket and stashes the badge in her top pocket before following Martha out the door and down the street..They walk about a block before hitting the first apartment, a small and slightly trashy one on the third floor of the complex. A woman of maybe fifty with a gray topknot and cigarette-stained teeth answers the door, a grim expression on her face.

“Whaddya want?” she growls.

“Agent Barton, FBI. This is my partner, Agent Wolfe.” Martha slides into a perfect Southern drawl and flashes her badge too quickly for the woman to look properly,Rose fumbling for her own and praying she opens it right. The woman stares at them for a moment before extending a grubby hand. “Margaret Tinner. I ‘spose you’re here about Delly?”

“Delly?” whispers Rose.

“Adele. Her daughter.” Martha answers, then raises her voice. “Yes, m’am, we’d like to ask you a couple questions.”

“‘Bout time the Feds got involved, I’ve been saying something’s wrong. My Delly wouldn’t run off like that. They keep saying she’s left home, dropped out of school, but Delly would never, just because-”

“Just because you’re poor and they assume she’s fated to go bad?” Rose pipes in. She gets this, all too well. Ms. Rinner recoils at her accent for a moment- there’s no way she can fake anything close to Martha’s- but just shrugs it off and nods, walking back into the apartment and leaving the door open for them to follow her inside. The interior of the apartment is (relatively) clean, if they discount the aura of cigarette smoke that clings to everything. On  slightly dingy floral couch sits a girl about Delly’s age, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with deep tan skin and a head of frizzy caramel hair. She looks as though the sky has fallen. Mrs. Rinner sits beside her on the couch, hand on a shoulder in an attempt to comfort. “Sophie.” she says softly. “Sophie, the agents want to talk to us about Delly.”

The girl looks up with a flicker of both dread and hope.

“I’m sorry, you weren’t in the report.” Martha says with uncertainty. “You are..?”

Sophie hesitates, playing with her fingers as she stares at her hands, eyes still red from tears. “I-I don’t think I should- just a friend.”

“It’s alright.” Rose says too quickly, just starting to understand. “We don’t judge.”

“Sophie Zelden. I was- _am_ \- Delly’s girlfriend. My parents- they wouldn’t have approved, didn’t know. That’s why I got left out of the report.” She says all this in a rush, then stares at Martha and Rose nervously, her tight stance releasing a bit when they don’t even blink.

“Were you with Adele the night she disappeared?” Martha starts scribbling things down on a tiny steno pad, the perfect picture of a real FBI agent. Rose remembers that officially Adele had been with her mother, but she’s beginning to doubt everything that report says on principle.

Sophie nods, curling her fingers into her hair nervously. “We were...at the diner. Up on 51st. Her eighteenth was two days ago, and I wanted to take her out, but I couldn’t afford much...anyways, she got up to go to the bathroom, and when she got back, something was different. She was just...wrong. “

“How was she different?”

“I-I don’t know if you’d believe me-”

“Try us.” Rose cuts across,

“It was like something else was walking around in her skin. It looked like Delly and it talked like Delly but it wasn’t _her_. And-”

Martha waves her on.

“It was just for a second, maybe I was seeing things, but I swear her eyes went black.”

Rose and Martha exchange a glance.

“You think I’m nuts.” sobs Sophie, no longer able to meet their eyes.

“No, no!” Rose leans forward to put a hand on her shoulder. “Just the opposite, actually. We keep hearing this, we’re just not sure what’s going on yet. You’ve been very helpful, might have even given us a lead.”

“You mean it?”

“‘Course I mean it.”

There’s nothing better than the way her eyes light up, hope in them once more.

......

“What the hell was that about?” Martha spouts as they walk back outside. “‘We keep seeing this?’ A _lead_? You’re gonna give her false hope.”

“It’s not false hope, it’s something!”

“You’re leaving breadcrumbs for every demon impersonator that comes calling. And yes, it is false hope.”

“Just because Adele’s possesed doesn’t necessarily mean she’s dead.”

“It pretty much does, yeah.”

“But there are ways to exorcise a demon-”

“Which only happens on the off chance that we get her alone and subdued before she kills us all. I’m telling ya, it almost never happens.” Martha sighs as she unlocks the Thunderbird. “We’re going to the diner, see if we can’t find out a little more. What happened after Sophie and Adele left the diner? Officially?”

“You tell me, you’re the one who read the report.”

“And I’m asking you to make sure you did too. Hunter-in-training, remember?”

Rose rolls her eyes as she jumps into the passenger seat, reciting it like a textbook. “Sophie went home, Adele vanished somewhere between the diner and the apartment.” Martha starts the car and begins the drive towards the diner. “Something tells me the Winchesters didn’t require you to recite case details when you started.”

“They didn’t train me, I wouldn’t know.” Martha answers smoothly.

“If they didn’t, who did?”

“Oh, I had a few friends in the life. Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, a couple others. They’re still living in the UK- well, most of them.” The way she says it makes Rose think it’s the ‘living’ part that only applies to most of them. She can see why hunters wouldn’t have the longest life spans.

They pull up to the diner and Martha parks in one of the few empty spots, bell at the top of the door jangling loudly as she pushes it open. The heat wave from yesterday is fading fast, metal of the door handle a little cool when she pushes it back, acrid scent of coffee tinging the air. A couple of lazy patrons look up when they walk in, but the only one who seems to care is the man behind the counter. “Can I get you ladies anything?” he asks offhandedly, and Martha just flips open her badge,slipping back into her amazingly accurate accent.

“Agent Barton, this is my partner Agent Wolfe. Mind if we take a look around?”

“Be my guest.” he laughs. “Why? If you can tell me, of course.”

“We’re investigating a disappearance, this is the last place they were seen.” Rose says, making a vague attempt at an American accent herself. From the look Martha gives her, she’s doing okay.

Martha steels herself for a second before making for the bathrooms. “It’s only been two days,” she says, “place like this, it probably hasn’t been cleaned.”

“Which means?”

Martha stops flicking her gaze between stalls and stops at the sink to run a finger through a thin line of yellow powder on the edge. “Sulfur. That confirms it. She was possessed in here.”

“Where do you think she went next?”

“You tell me.”

“All previous experience points to the dirtiest warehouse in town.” grumbles Rose.

“Previous experience?”

“Zygons in Bangkok. Long story.”

 _“Zygons?_ Do you just smash letters together and hope they come out sounding like a word?”

“They’re a real species! They’re shapeshifters.”

“Oh, _great_ , more shifters, that’s exactly what we need.”

Rose stares longingly at the diner counter, her own lack of sleep weighing heavy on her eyelids. “Look, mate, could we at least get a cup of coffee? Maybe a paper?”

“Considering we don’t know _which_ dirty warehouse, sure.” Martha walks over to the counter and orders two cups, while Rose slides into the nearest open booth and picks a copy of last night’s paper off the vinyl. It’s one of those funny little habits she’s acquired since she was resurrected, a morning cup of tea and the paper. Although this time something a little more caffeinated is necessary.

Martha joins her a moment later as she starts laying it all over the table by section, grabbing her cup blindly and wincing a little as the bitter liquid slides down her throat, still boiling. She hopes Martha doesn’t catch her fumble, but she isn’t that lucky.

“Bit hot for you?”

“Oh, shut up.” She starts piling aside the sections that aren’t of any relevance, scanning the criminal blurbs in hopes of finding something when a tiny piece of text catches her eye. “Martha, how many potentials do we have?”

“Only three, why?”

Rose reaches across the table and points to the headline: _HOMELESS SHELTER REPORTS OVERNIGHT RESIDENCY DROP._

“Shit. They got smart, I hate it when that happens.”

“If they’re using homeless, there could be-” Rose cuts off suddenly and leaps out of the booth, nearly sending the coffee flying (it’s only Martha’s quick hand that rescues it.)

“What? What is it?” Martha eyes her suspiciously, one hand still around the coffee. All she hears is a car with a brake issue. A very annoying brake issue.

“I heard it, I know I did-” Rose sprints for the diner door and out around back, standing for a second and staring at the sky searchingly. There is a sound in her ears, an old, familiar sound, soaring and screeching and giving her hope for the first time in oh so many years-

“Rose!” shrieks Martha, and  she falls back to earth just in time to feel the rush of air as something runs between them. She reaches for her angel blade a second too late, demon forcing her up against the wall, brick scratching into her back through her suit. Martha drops and grabs her gun, firing wide just to get its attention. In that brief moment of distraction, Rose finds just enough strength to slip out from under its wrists, twirling around with a sweep of her blade. The demon blocks her with a kitchen knife, the woman’s face twisting under its control, black eyes gleaming.

And Rose freezes.

It’s the briefest of instants, but for that tiny speck of time she is back in Hell, being assaulted by another demon with a knife. It’s terrifying and hot and feels oh so very real.

When she blinks back again, Martha has the demon at gunpoint and she hasn’t moved in a inch.

“No.” she says, and it feels like someone else is moving her lips. “Don’t kill it.”

“Why not?”

“There’s somebody still in there, yeah? I wanna get them out.”

“Rose, you know what that person’ll be like. Better than anyone.”

Is she really doing this? Dangling Hell in front of her face like that? After what’s just happened?

But then, maybe Martha _doesn’t_ realize what’s just happened.

“Then we interrogate it. Find out what it’s in town for. And then we get it out.”

“You’re too kind.” hisses the demon. “It will be your undoing.”

“No.” Rose threatens. “It’s gonna be yours.”

.............

The demon awakens an hour later with a nasty bruise on the side of its head, tied to a chair in a (surprise) dingy warehouse, Martha’s neatly drawn trap securing it in place.

“Hello, child.”

Rose is perched on a stack of boxes, playing with her angel blade between her fingers, ignoring its simmering whisper as best she can. Martha offered to take point on this one, since Rose is still very inexperienced, but there’s something else- two somethings- itching at the back of her mind.

_You’re not up to this._

It’s true, so very true, if the alleyway was anything to go by. Any moment she could lose control.

And there’s still the issue of the TARDIS.

She heard it, she _knows_ she heard it- or at least she thinks she does. Rose will be the first to admit she isn’t exactly mentally stable these days, and the chances that he would land in the same city she’s in- now that’s just laughable. She very well may have gone insane, and no one would quite blame her for it, but she doesn’t- she doesn’t want to-

She steels herself and opens her mouth, once again not really remembering she’s the one speaking. “Who are you in?”

The demon snaps its head forward like an alligator, licking its lips. “Some chick off the street. Why do you care? They’re all degenerates anyways.”

Rose begins to snap back, but a look from Martha silences her. “You can’t reason with a demon. Just let me do this.” She walks so her feet brush the edge of the demon’s trap, a tantalizing temptation. “Why are you here?”

“Like I’d tell you.”

Martha nods, then pulls her flask out of her jacket and douses it in holy water. It tilts its head back in a screech as its skin boils, and Rose feels just the tiniest twinge of satisfaction. _It probably tortured thousands downstairs._

_The demon deserves it. But does the human?_

“This is how it works.” Still Martha is deadly calm. “You speak, or we keep going.”

“Never.”

Rose is busy fighting the urge to take over, the itch under her skin to slowly rip the demon apart with her blade. She isn’t quite sure where it came from, but it terrifies her.

_Don’t. You’d be no better than it is._

It screeches again, water steaming off its face, and Rose embeds her nails in her palms to keep herself under control.

“I can do this all day.” warns Martha.

“Alright, alright! We’re tracking a Phoenix.”

Martha stops cold, and oh does Rose notice. She wages internal war for a second longer before deciding _fuck it_ and stepping forward. She needs to know what’s really going on here. “A what?”

“They float in and out of history, come back after they die. You should have heard of them. Or are you too new to this job?”

Her first thought is that it sounds like the Doctor, but the second line of the demons catches her with a panic. It- it knows her, it _has_ to.

“Rose?” There’s a nervous question in Martha’s voice, the final realization that she’s not quite all there.

“Why?” Rose’s voice shakes. “Why a phoenix?”

“I’m not gonna tell you!” it laughs. “I remember you. Your demon was an old friend of mine. We sliced people up together. And oh the ways he used to tell me, the way he made you scream. You’re too easy, too emotional, so full of faith that he was going to come back for you. It’s still too easy to torture you. Do you remember the noise, the one in the alleway? The one that leaves you so disgustingly _full_ of hope? That was me. He’s not coming, and I will make sure that if he ever does I will rip you apart and make him watch-”

“Shut up!” The last string of control she had evaporates, she lunges forward into the circle, scratching a line across the demon’s face.

“So pathetic. It would have been quicker to just throw you to the hellhounds. Maybe that’s why he had so much fun with-”

And then she completely loses it, bypassing the part where she wanted to save the vessel and instead driving her angel blade so far into its chest it sticks out the other side. All she wants is for the demon to be dead, for it to stop talking, and it arcs back in a brilliant burst of light as it dies. She pulls the blade out and stands back a little, stuck firmly in shock.

“Alright.” she says, voice rough. “You’ve not been telling me everything, yeah? Cause I think you knew about the phoenix. You wouldn’t come to Reno in the middle of the fucking apocalypse for a handful of disappearances unless there’s something else going on.”

Martha is more than a bit scared of Rose at the moment, standing there all wild-eyed and still very visibly armed. “Yeah, it’s-it’s the phoenix, we’ve been tracking it for several weeks now. Was in Reno last sixty years ago. It likes to keep coming back after about that long, we don’t know why. Cas said the ashes were part of one of the spells to break a seal, so-”

“You kill it before the demons get to it and stash the ashes in some angelic hidey-hole where they’ll never track it down. “

“That’s the idea.”

“Doesn’t sound very solid. And one question. Why’d you drag me along? You know exactly what sort of state I’m in.” A thought suddenly hits her. “Do you think my Doctor is the phoenix?”

“Rose.”

“Don’t do that to me. I thought-I don’t care if that was just the demon playing with me. If they think he’s in town, people are in danger. If by some miracle he actually is, it’s probably terrible danger. Now, I’m going to find out before you fuck things up even more royally than they already are.”

“Rose, wait-”

But she’s already gone.

........

Her head is buzzing with the voices again. Won’t they ever go away? Can’t she ever get some rest?

_Demons- phoenix in nevada- Zachariah, the Seal-_

_Shut up!_ Rose screams at no one. _Just leave me alone!_

She stops to lean against a wall in the alleyway, arm resting above her head, breathing heavily. _Doctor, Doctor, please-_

“Something the matter, doll?”

“It’s nothing, and you’re a-” There’s something in the voice, a tiny slip, that sets off the alarm bells. Shit. Demon. They’re on her like flies to a rotting carcass.

 _You can take one._ Some part of her is still hopelessly optimistic, that part dropping even further with every glimpse it gets. Demons, plural, and the first one has managed to pick up an angel blade somewhere. Fucking hell.

“One of your friends dropped this downstairs.” it snarls.

And then things generally fall to shit.

Rose ignores the pounding in her chest and moves first in a dynamic sweep under the blade, rolling up into the chest of the closest unarmed one. She understands now why Martha says they can’t always save them. This is survival, in its purest and basest form, just staying alive long enough for the next attack to hit. A second raises its hand and flings her against the wall in a crumpling flash of psychic energy, but she pushes back with a wave of her own, the constructs she built around her wrist scar disappearing from the redistribution. The waves meet in the middle and cancel each other out, and she can’t help but notice how angelic the whole thing looks.

A _man in an old robe, like an ancient peasant, being flung against the wall by her own force-_

She blinks back into reality just fast enough to block the blow of the armed one. _What the hell?_ She’d frozen up in the alleyway before but at least that time she had known why.

A stab to the throat on the closest one, and-

_-another robed peasant, with eyes like coal, shrieking as he bleeds yellow, and her brother by her side-_

Another pins her back by one arm, and she lifts a hand and watches the life blaze out of it simply from her own will. She’s seen this before, although the power source wasn’t quite the same.

_-the third demon doesn't die right when she smites it, blue, not yellow, and suddenly she realizes they’re not demons, that the color on their eyes is just a veneer-_

Two left, and she _remembers-_

The armed one finally gets a hold on her, and ancient instincts take over, a thought implanting in her head about how pathetically he handles his blade. There’s an innuendo somewhere in there, Jack would find it hilarious.

“You should be human!” it gasps, if a demon can be so surprised, struggling to block her flurry of blows. “You should be dead!”

_-”What are we doing?” she shouts at Ezekiel. “They’re human!”_

_“They’re sinners, they deserve this!”_

_“No.” she bites back. “No, no one deserves this.”-_

The memories are destroying her, she can’t fight properly anymore-

_-”Do you think they’ll realize what we’ve done?” she asks Anael, legs dangling off her cloud._

_“I burned two pairs of wings into the barn. They will think us dead.”_

_She nods. “It was dark in there, too many blades being lost. It won’t be hard to believe.”_

_With a sigh Arkytiel drapes her wings down around her shoulders. She will miss them, most of all. “I hope we meet again, sister.”_

_Anael nods. “As do I.”_

_Arkytiel reaches beneath her glimmering form , hand grabbing around her Grace, which protests the instant she starts to tug._

_She is shocked all the heavens do not hear her scream._ -

Rose can’t think straight, her prowess is vanishing, it’s all she can do to stay alive now-

The demon dies in a burst of light, dropping like a stone, and Cas stares up at her with that blue-eyed owl’s gaze from where he stood behind it.

“Cas?” She feels like she’s about to collapse, to have her legs give way from underneath her.

“You called out for me.” he rumbles.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees movement, and suddenly remembers the last demon. “Castiel, move!” she shouts, still prepared to defend him, but she recognizes the face that looms out at her as the face from the report. The picture in the police report was a school picture, delighted and smiling, not this leering thing, but it is still very much Adele Rinner.

_Martha would kill her._

_I’m not Martha. There’s been too many people dead here today._

_You’re really turning into the Doctor, aren’t you? Only saving those you deem worthy? Those lucky enough to make a mark?_

Rose closes her eyes and reaches out, mid grabbing around the black monster that dances around Adele’s soul, pulling with everything she’s got. Black smoke stream out of her throat, and Rose gets so light-headed she can hardly stand, barely able to lean over and check the girl’s pulse when the demon is gone to confirm that yes, she is still alive.

“Arkytiel.’ says Cas behind her. “Are you injured?”

“Castiel.” she whispers. “Cas, I remember.”

And then she sort of falls into her brother’s arms, too exhausted to stand. Cas, being Cas, doesn’t really know what to do with the hug, other than stand there awkwardly and keep her from collapsing.

“ROSE!” Martha, arrived at fucking last, races into the alleyway, hand over her mouth. “What the hell happened?”

“Got jumped.” she mutters, moving herself away from Cas so she’s just leaning on his shoulder. “I doubt this is all of them. I saved her, though. Saved Adele.”

Cas puts two fingers to her forehead, mutters something to Martha, and then Rose is unconscious entirely.

...........................

“He couldn’t have thought to heal me.” laments Rose from the edge of the motel bed as Martha finishes the wrapping on her injured arm. “All that, and he couldn’t have healed me?” Her hands are still shaking from the exorcism, she didn't really have the strength to pull that sort of thing off in the first place.

“I think he was kind of in shock.”

“He’s an angel, he doesn’t go into shock.”

“You do.”

“Yeah, but Martha-I’m not-” She sighs. No point in denying it anymore.

“How many did Cas get?” Martha asks nonchalantly.

“Just the one.:

“Really?” She doesn't believe it. Why would she?

“Martha...I remember. Being an angel.”

Martha stops and sits on the other motel bed, looking her straight in the face. “What happened, then? Why did you-?”

“Go human? We were in Romania, my superioris tricked us into thinking some pagan peasants were demons. We slaughtered them...My sister Anael and I, we ripped out our Graces together. The archangels had gone corrupt, we couldn't stay.”

“You wouldn't happen to remember where it is, yeah? Your Grace?”

Rose shakes her head.

“Alright.” Martha sighs. “You stay here. I’m gonna go see if I can find more on the phoenix.”

“No!” she shouts, a little too quickly. If there’s even the slightest chance....

“Excuse me?”

“I’m fine, I’m coming with you.”

_Would he still want you, after everything you’ve done?_

_Course he would._

.........

She didn’t realize how long Martha had kept her detained in the motel room; it’s dark by the time they walk back outside, temperature dropping fast. If he was even here in the first place, he’d probably be long gone by now.

Think it through. The noise by the diner and the demon horde only three streets overs. If it was here, it’s be somewhere between those two places. She tells Martha exactly this, except she leaves about the bit about the time-traveling police box, and her friend guns the ignition the instant she sees that glimmer of hope in Rose’s eye.

“There!” Rose nearly screams the instant something blue and wooden catches her eyes, punching the roof of the Thunderbird in triumph. Martha screeches the car to a halt as she sprints out. “That’s just one of those old police boxes-”

“In _Reno_?”  She pets the door lovingly, one hand buried in her pocket for the key that hasn't left her side since she stumbled out of the ruins of Torchwood, and listens to the satisfying little click as it opens. Her heart leaps to her throat as it cracks open with that familiar whine. She’s missed this hsip nearly as much as it’s owner. Nearly.

“Anybody home?” she calls experimentally, but the lights are dim, the TARDIS taking a catnap. There’s no one here right now.

Still outside the cracked door, Martha shakes her head. “That box is way too small.” She reaches to push in the door, and her jaw drops. “Holy. Shit.” She races back out, just to make sure, all the while shouting “It’s bigger on the inside!”

Rose grins, hand dancing along the TARDIS console, the living being inside humming as it recognizes her. “I made it, Doctor.” she whispers. “I came home.”

“Rose?” Martha’s voice sounds quite frankly terrified, and her hand reaches for her blad on principle. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I found sulfur.”

“No no _no no no!_ ” Rose shrieks, racing out of the TARDIS and slamming the door shut behind her. “He can’t have been- a demon in a Time Lord’s body- Cas, I need you!”

He appears with a crackle of wings. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to find the Doctor. Now.”

“The Doctor?”

“The phoenix- whatever you call him!’

“If I could have found him myself-”

“Oh, fuck you. Just look. “ She grabs Castiel’s hands in desperation, thinking of ever time she;s ever seen him, all those days flashing before her eyes. She tries to hold back the important stuff, but he might end up seeing it anyways. “This face. Have you seen it before?”

Cas looks shell-shocked. “Just a few moments ago, when I was returning the girl to her family.”

“Then take us there.”

There’s a firm hand on her shoulder and a whooshing feeling on her chest Cas zaps them to a mostly abandoned intersection in downtown Reno. At the end strolls a man in a tan trenchcoat, flanked by a pair of black-eyed demons, all three going for a car to presumably leave them behind.

 _Doctor!_  Rose has to bite down hard on her tongue to prevent herself from calling out his name. She instead turns her head to Cas, some silent slip of communication passing between them, and they work in tandem, the angel smiting one demon while the former angel stabs the other.

Then the thing that is not her Doctor turns around and decides to play.

“Rose!” he gasps, his eyes unclouded, and for a fraction of a second she believes it’s really him in there. “Thank you- they were frightening me-”

That’s it, that’s all she has to see, because her Doctor would _never_ react like that to her sudden reappearance. “You’re not the Doctor. Sorry, can't fool me.”

“Oh, and I’m getting it wrong again, aren't I.” He smiles hungrily, eyes going black. “You’re such idiots, humans. Brave, i’ll give you that, but undeniably stupid. Do you honestly think you stand a chance against me?”

He lifts a hand, and although Rose can see Cas try to fight back, not even his complete Grace can cancel out the force of the demon’s psychic wave. She’s thrown so hard she goes flying into the air, the bones in her right arm shattering when she makes contact with pavement, skin ripped to shreds. For a moment she just lies there, overwhelmed by the pain, then grits her teeth and gets back to her feet, the endless pattern of you’ve lived through worse playing in her head.

“Leave him.” she snarls. She can see Cas draped over the hood of the car, but no sign of Martha. She can only pray that she’s safe.

“Well, you’re stubborn. How about we make a proposition? You let me kill you painlessly.”

“Not much of a deal.”

“The alternative is that I destroy this city,” he threatens, and the nearest car floats a few inches above the ground quite ominously. “and then I kill, you slowly and in the most painful way imaginable.”

“That’s already happened to me,” she laughs bitterly, “several times.”

“I’m inside your Doctor's head,” he reminds her. “I see everything he’s seeing. Oh the stars, how they burn.”

“It must overwhelm you.”

“It only makes me stronger. See, I can see it, everything he knows about you. I can kill you more painfully than any other death of yours, because I know what he knows, and he knows what his little lionheart is afraid of. You can’t win.”

He’s right, of course. She doesn’t even have the strength to heal herself without losing what she needs to pull the demon out of him. Even then she’s sure she’ll have enough, unless she can catch him off guard. She’s hapless, hopeless-

Not quite.

Rose remembers, once, back when they were in ancient Rome, a funny little machine that could grant wishes but required massive amounts of energy to work. Despite not having a power source, it had managed to pull off some pretty incredible feats before they realized it wasn’t doing those things at all- it was just creating the illusion that they’d happen. And an illusion takes  a lot less energy than the act itself.

Confuse the demon, drop its guard, then strike. It’s not much of a plan, but it’s what she’s got.

First, her arm. She drops her uninjured hand away from it and sets an neat shimmer over it so it looks like the skin has healed, ignoring the raw nerves screaming at her. She remembers how  the archangels looked, now, eyes blazing a brilliant blue, wings crackling into a shadow of existence. Might as well take this all the way.

“You’re bluffing!” stutters the demon, watching her “wings” flare into life with widening eyes. “There’s no way you’re strong enough.”

“Really wanna test that, mate?”

He’s thrown, analyzing, there’s a half-a-second window where his guard goes down as he tries to decide if she’s faking or not, and that’s when she strikes. Rose pulls around the demon in the mind like the snare on a rabbit, and it thrashes and screams and hammer nails into her brain, but she’s _not letting go._

_Leave him!_

It fights Rose all the way down, taking forever to uncoil himself from around the pair of hearts and up out his throat, scrabbling until it’ flung back into the Pit. Behind her she sense Martha being revived by Cas, a willing soldier just in case she can’t finish the job.

That won’t be necessary.

“Doctor!”

He slides down and hits the concrete, coming to a second later. When he sees Rose stumbling toward him, closing the few feet left, his face goes as white as a sheet, and that’s how she knows it’s really him in there.

“Rose?” It comes out as more of a gasp, this expression of absolute disbelief, because there’s no way she could have survived-

She throws her arms around him in a desperate maneuver, his hands settling about her waist, verifying that, yes, it isn’t a ghost. Rose Tyler. Here. With him.

“Rose, out of the way.” Martha is still very, very armed.

“Don’t you dare.” she hisses, moving just enough out of his grasp so she can lock eyes with Martha.

“He’s still a seal, we have to handle this.”

“No, we don’t. Don’t you get it, Martha? He’s not the phoenix. I don’t remember anything that says demons can possess something as supernatural as themselves.” She almost says that they can;t possess anything that’s not human, but then remembers how very not human the Doctor is.

There’s a hesitation before Martha lowers her gun, but Rose is still looking very deadly and Martha does not really want to set her off. “Cas, you should go.” she says instead. “I’m sure you’re needed elsewhere. Although- if you could-”

“Of course.” he says, and makes a point of healing Rose’s shoulder before he flies off. Under normal circumstances, the Doctor would be babbling things about the miracles occurring before his eyes, but instead he just stares, baffled, hands curled even tighter around Rose.

“You should be dead.” he whispers into her ear. “Really, properly dead. I don’t understand-”

She shakes her head and cuts him off. “Not here. Not now. Martha?”

“Yes?”

“If you want to keep you car I suggest you drive back to Bobby’s. We’ve got...other ways of returning. Might be a few weeks.”

This is the point where Martha stops asking questions altogether and just leaves.

“You alright?” he whispers, wrapping them in that tiny scrap of street, all to themselves. “You seem-”

“I can hardly stand up.” she slurs. Cas may have healed her arm, but did absolutely nothing for her exhaustion.

“Hang on. I got you.”

She passes out some time after that sentence, although she isn’t sure when.

.................

“Hello.”

She’s in her bed. In her own room. On the TARDIS.

She’d never thought she’d get this far.

The Doctor is dozing in a chair pulled up beside her, a sign she must have been out for a while. Rose feels so overwhelmed with-well, everything, she still can’t believe he’s really here-

He opens his eyes and smiles deviously back. “Hello.”

She sits up and stares at him, manages to hold herself there for half a second before opening her mouth again. She isn’t sure what she was going to say, exactly, only that he does the exact same thing and neither of them quite get there, meeting in the middle with one of those kisses that happens accidentally at the perfect moment.

Rose holds on to it for a little too long, smiling around the edges, before pulling herself up around his shoulders, one hand curled into the fabric of his tie. He goes down hard, leaning over her on a bed that was never really meant for two, kissing her so hard he forgets to breathe, her hands slipping beneath his suit and undoing those blasted buttons. In response her own start to go, Rose incredibly pink-faced and breathless, not willing to stop any time soon.

He only gets to third one before he stops, fingers tracing the dark tattoo on her collarbone. “What’s this?”

“Weren’t we busy?”

He considers forgetting and returning to the much more engaging adventure of systematically stripping down Rose, but to be honest he needs a few answers. Great Rassilon, he’d never thought he’d see the day when that happened.

“I need to know how you’re alive.” he purrs instead, slipping in beside her to tug her into the curve of his body. “Rose, you fell into the Void. You should have died.”

“I did.”

“What?” He’s not sure he heard her right.

“I did die.” She repeats it in the same still voice. “And then I came back.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“You met him. Cas. He pulled me out of Hell.”

“That’s-Hell- Rose, I wasn’t serious-”

“No, but I am. And it’s there, I was there. Please, all those times I've gone out on a limb to believe your wild ideas, this time I need you to believe me.”

“Alright.”

“That’s it? Alright?”

He presses a kiss to her temple. “Maybe the universe isn’t everything I thought.”

......

Engine of her Thunderbird idling softly, cup of coffee in the cupholder, Martha watches as Adele and Sophie walk back into Adele’s apartment, laughing about something probably insignificant and stupid. It’s been years since she could save somebody like that- hell, she didn’t even do  it. Rose did.

Maybe Rose is right, she thinks.

Maybe, once in a while, somebody lives.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> it is 2 in the fucking morning  
> and i'm posting this  
> the things i do for you people  
> (Actually, jsyk, I'm in love with this fic and don't mind at all.)  
> Yes, that is a Stone Rose reference. Good for you if you spotted it. And yes, I did draw the thing.  
> My original plan of "order what order" has become "shit i have an actual plot". So actual updates. And things. I'm not gonna set a date cause that always ends badly.  
> (I am, however, planning an End!verse/Turn Left Christmas Special. I'm cruel like that.)  
> (i've just realized i right all my summaries the same. I need to fix that.)


End file.
